Easy Mussels Marinara (with Marinara recipe)
30 minutes from prepped ingredients to serving. Easy
Ingredients
1.75 lbs mussels*
1 Cup dry white Wine
1 Small onion, chopped
7 Large cloves garlic, minced
1 16.0 ounces tweaked marinara sauce** for your Mussels
2 TBS olive oil
2 TBS salted Butter
1 Tsp Salt
.25 Tsp Fresh Ground Pepper
1 loaf Italian Bread (the best you can get), 1/2 inch thick slices, and if you cut it at an angle it will look even nicer
1 heaping Tsp Sriracca Sauce
1/4 Tsp ground red pepper flakes
Directions
Mussels are considered the freshest in this area if you get them in the 'R' months. (months containing an 'R.') The bag pictured was 1.75 lbs of mussels. The hardest part of this entire recipe (if there is a 'hardest' part) is rinsing & separating the mussels.**
-In a large saute pan heat olive oil and butter, add onion and garlic and lightly saute until the onions are translucent - up to about 10 minutes. (medium to low heat as you DO NOT want to brown the garlic)
-Add the Wine, Salt and Pepper and stir, increase heat to med-hi and bring to a rolling boil.
-While boiling, Gently add the mussels, (just add by gently pouring them in the pan and don't stir) cover pot and cook until mussels are fully opened (discard unopened mussels), approximately 8-10 minutes. (lots of steam will be coming out from under the lid)
-remove from heat and gently pour entire contents of pan into a large pasta bowl.
[This recipe is great if you stop here too, but I really like adding the tweaked marinara. It adds a great flavor to the mussels and I have more sauce to dip the bread]
In a separate pot bring the marinara sauce to barely a simmer stirring constantly (about 3 minutes over med-hi heat), then pour it over the mussels and serve with the Italian bread for dipping after the mussels are eaten.
This goes great with dry white wine, a not too complex red, or a light beer
*Rinsing and Separating the mussels: Run them under cold water, & lightly brush off the surface of the shells. Check them all that they're all closed completely. This is a good sign that they're still alive and fresh enough to eat. If they're not, they MAY be dead and you don't want to eat them. To check this, whack them on the counter/cutting-board/handle of your heavy knife hard, but not hard enough to crack the shell, then set those aside. Sometimes they're just resting open, are still alive, and absolutely worth this step. Continue separating. Any ones that are wide open or have cracked shells with the insides showing just discard. When you're done, check the ones that you whacked to see if they've closed. (In my bag, out of the 1.75 lbs, I tossed 5, 3 were cracked & missing large parts of the shell so I count them as dead, and 2 others didn't fully close. 5 did close back up! As you're eating your last mussels you'll be thankful you did this! Yeah, they're that good.)
**Tweaked Marinara Sauce:
-Use 16 oz of Marinara sauce made below and add one heaping TSP of Sriracca Sauce and 1/4 tsp ground red pepper flakes (mortar & pestle or you can chop them up very well with a knife too). Taste! It should have just a little kick to it.
++Alt Version: You can also serve this with or without the marinara over 1/2 lb Linguine.
If you're not making your own marinara, here's a great cheat,
Marinara Recipe:
26oz of a really good jar brand that you like. (NOT a meat sauce! most of the jars are 26oz)
1 28oz (large can) San Marzano Tomato's - it needs to say D.O.P. on the can. If it doesn't they're not as good. If your mother or grandmother disagrees don't argue, but since they're wrong, you'll follow this recipe and lie to them that you did it their way.
3 TBS tomato paste (Italian herb flavored is OK too.)
1 large onion diced
3 large garlic cloves finely chopped
2 TBS fresh oregano (or 2Tsp dried)
2 TBS fresh basil (or Tsp dried)
2 TBS good olive oil
2 TBS salted Butter
2 Tsp Salt (more to taste if needed)
1 Tsp Fresh Ground Pepper (more to taste if needed)
1 TBS Sugar
Directions:
-In a large (3QT or larger) sauce pan, medium-low heat, heat olive oil and butter then add Onion and Garlic. Saute until onion is translucent.
- Add Oregano, Basil, Salt and Pepper and stir
- Add Jar of sauce, can of Tomatoes, and Tomato Paste and stir.
- Heat until barely simmering
- Blend almost smooth with a stick blender
- Continue barely simmering for 30 minutes.
- Add Sugar, stir
(After you do this marinara recipe a few times you can leave out the jarred sauce, increase everything else by 50% and then start adjusting the ingredients to make it your own.)
Mussels Marinara
I was a little lean on the onion. Add more or less to your suiting. I could have easily added double and it would have still been great. That's 7 large cloves of fresh garlic. You can chop the onion and garlic more fine if you want.
(below) Rinsed and Separated Mussels
(below) Heating the onion & garlic over med/low heat - DON'T BURN or FRY IT!!
(below) On the verge of totally translucent. If you leave it on the heat longer the onion will get mushy and you'll lose the texture. Time for the wine, Salt & Pepper.
(below) Wine, Salt & Pepper Added,
(below) Increase the heat to med/hi and just bring to a rolling boil and add Mussels
Cover for 8-10 minutes. I didn't look for 9 minutes, removed the cover and voila! 100% of the ones that made it to the pan opened.
Pour it into a large pasta serving bowl, then top with tweaked Marinara, take picture with S3 in blue phone case,
Bring a large bowl to put the shells in as you use your fingers to pull these bad boys out one at a time, letting any excess sauce drip back into the dish and eating the mussel out of the shell with a fork. Bring over enough sliced Italian bread so that you won't have to get up for more. For me it was about 1/3 of a loaf. Have all alcohol products within reach, several napkins and enjoy.
My date rolled in around 10:30 after her rounds & she asked if I saved her any. I said "Sure did. I saved the other bottle of wine for us."
The mussels were gone.